My wife wants to try Geocaching (GPS Cache Hunting, kind of treasure hunting with GPS) which requires a GPS device, so looking at buying a new Smartphone with GPS. Currently have a cheap (cost £10 a few years back) pay as you go mobile that’s a phone and that’s about it, we barely ever use, screen has a big crack in it from when I sat on it :-)
Found a Mobile Phone the Nokia Lumia 710 for £100 on pay as you go which did everything we needed, GPS (for the Geocaching), 5 Megapixels camera (not needed, but nice) and something called Nokia Drive which as a ‘free’ addon is useful as don’t have an in car navigation systems.
During the Smartphone research realised we could drop our landline (barely use the phone) and SKY broadband (phone + Internet costs around £20 a month not including phone calls: few quid a month on calls at most) and potentially buy a Smartphone with unlimited broadband (must be unlimited broadband) for a similar price (theoretically lower monthly price IF the broadband could be used on any device).
Now it gets confusing, looking at the 3 network for example (came up as the cheapest network for the Nokia Lumia 710 at the Carphone Warehouse) the cheapest unlimited broadband bandwidth plans (well under £20 a month) are NOT tethered (can’t use on other devices without paying for addons).
Apple iPhone 4
Cheapest tethered options on the 3 phone network seems to be around £25 a month for lower spec phones which like a good consumer results in me looking at upgrades like the Apple iPhone 4 8GB for £30 a month and a £50 one off payment.
Now I’ve gone from potentially saving a few quid a month and getting a Smartphone and the ability to use a Laptop almost anywhere to spending an extra ~£300 (£50 one off plus 24 times £10) over 2 years!
Funny how sometimes we spend more while trying to save money :-)
